altara

Tuesday, July 02, 2013

North Carolina, the Progressive State

It used to be. Now the Republicans have moved it to the dark side.

"The national standard for state unemployment benefits 26 weeks, which
North Carolina will cut to 19. What's more, while in 49 states, jobless
Americans can access federal resources once state benefits are
exhausted, in North Carolina, those struggling to find work will simply
be out of luck." For good measure, the Republicans also reduced the weekly benefit.

They have also reduced educational funding, hurt environmental protections, forced teachers to lie to students about risks in abortions, and are working toward more regressive income taxes.

"The most progressive state in the South" R.I.P.

UPDATE - Sneak attack by GOP. "North Carolina's state Senate voted Tuesday to pass a second reading of a measure placing tougher restrictions on abortion after Republicans in the legislature tacked the abortion regulations on to a bill targeting Sharia law."

This provision, imposing unreasonable conditions for abortion providers, may well leave NC with only one women's clinic.

War on Women

"Women will also be required to pay for state-mandated,
medically-unnecessary ultrasounds they do not want and their doctors do
not think they need."

So to exercise their constitutional right to obtain an abortion, women will be ordered to undergo a medical procedure. There is no logical justification for this.

On the other hand, there is a logical reason to want voters to be in a rational state when voting. So - to exercise the constitutional right to vote, voters should be required to undergo drug and alcohol tests.